1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a vehicle driven by a motor and a control method of charging and discharging of a secondary battery provided in the vehicle.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, there has been known such a technique that, in a vehicle provided with a secondary battery for supplying an electric power to a motor, charging and discharging of the secondary battery is controlled so that a power storage amount (SOC: State of Charge) of the secondary battery is kept between a predetermined upper limit and a predetermined lower limit. The vehicle is, for example, a fuel cell vehicle, a hybrid vehicle, or the like. In terms of this technique, in order to more effectively obtain a regenerative energy at the time of braking the vehicle, there has been known a drive control device which specifies a descent zone having a predetermined height difference and existing on a running path of a vehicle and which expands a management width between the upper limit and the lower limit at the time when the vehicle runs in the zone thus specified (Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-160269 (JP 2005-160269 A)).
However, there is room for further improvement as for the technique to control charging and discharging of the secondary battery. For example, in a case where the management width of the power storage amount (SOC) of the secondary battery is changed like JP 2005-160269 A, it is necessary to change settings of those other parts of the drive control device which are affected by the management width, along with the change of the management width, thereby causing such a problem that the control is complicated. Further, for example, in JP 2005-160269 A, a regenerative energy obtained when a current kinetic energy of the vehicle is regenerated is not considered sufficiently.